


Those who have already lost

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [157]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Codependency, Fix-It, Gen, Infinity Gauntlet, Wanda is the most powerful Avenger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 19:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14503980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: She does not hold back. She does not refrain. She does not split her power because she does not need to now. She knows: with half her might she can hold him off. With all her might? With it all she might just end him.





	Those who have already lost

**Author's Note:**

> So... if Wanda could destroy the stone with one hand and hold off Thanos with the other, with both she could kill him right? In this AU she realises this in time and Thanos be _fucked_.
> 
> Also... tease for Wanda being able to reality warp as per comics because COME ON. Give me back my witchy girl. Let my scarlet witchy girl be powerful and strong and not be continually beaten down.

Do not take from those who have already lost.

Wanda holds off Thanos with half her might and with the other she destroys the man she loves. She has not felt an agony like this, an expression of such great power, since the last time she lost that which she loved. 

Since Pietro.

She finds her pain. She finds her anger. She finds her loss and hate and sorrow and makes it  _ more. _

 

* * *

 

When it is done, when Vision is gone she falls to the forest floor and weeps.

The creature touches her hair, says some soft words and she  _ spits _ as she had at Ultron. Those who would do this, who would so willingly take, they do not understand, they do not know what it is to lose, not truly, because they take and give away in the belief that it is worth it.

She does not know that it is. She cannot know that. She just has hope and belief and loss and pain.

Then the creature twists his hand and time is undone.

 

* * *

 

_ No. NO. NO NO NONONONONONONONONO! _

Wanda’s might is more.

She does not hold back. She does not refrain. She does not split her power because she does not need to now. She knows: with half her might she can hold him off. With all her might? With it all she might just end him.

She tosses him back with a curl of scarlet around his ankle, she grips his head and crushes with a curl more. She finds all the rest and hurls it, not a shield but a dagger and a scythe, and for all Thanos’ desperate shield he cannot stand against this and his pain and his surprise. 

_ Know my pain? _ She thinks. His mind may be in anguish but Wanda does not care.  _ Fuck _ his anguish. He sought to become the most powerful man in the world by destroying half of it, by taking from those he was already taking from and she has had  _ enough. _

Parents taken and peace taken, brother taken and city, and freedom and vengeance and she gave away her love so she might save a world which has defended her far less than she has defended it.

Scarlet curls and scarlet coils. Scarlet thickens from smoke and dust to blood and fire.

“Reality,” whispers Thanos as his skull is slowly crushed more and more, as his hand is forced out and splayed, fingers cut and cut and cut, the gauntlet shattered into a thousand pieces, torn from his hand, and pieced back together between them. “You have reality in your  _ veins.” _

Wanda rises, Wanda’s scarlet  _ sings _ in might and anger and with both her hands she tears the mad titan to pieces.

The gauntlet, gold metal and glowing stones, falls to the ground.

 

* * *

 

Her hands find the metal just as Vision’s touches her shoulder.

“Wanda,” he says. “I told you-”

“I did,” she says. “I did. And then he undid time.”

Vision’s hand slides down her back and he crouches beside her. His arm pulls her close and her hands lift the gauntlet. It is heavy. It is huge. Wanda doesn’t care.

_ You have reality in your veins. _

She stretches her will, groans in pain and in grief, and the gauntlet shrinks to fit her.

“Wanda,” Vision says. “What-”

“He’s already killed,” she says. “Already taken.” She looks at Vision with earnest eyes. The tears she’d shed before are still there, bright against her cheeks and she sees Vision’s gaze darting. Sees as he knows her sorrow.

“You will undo it,” he says. “Without undoing-”

The mess and mush that once had been Thanos lies before them. 

“Burn it?” she asks him. “Make sure he cannot be found in any part again?”

Vision nods, the stone glows, and Wanda clenches her gauntleted fist.

 

* * *

 

Far away at the bottom of a cliff, a woman sucks in breath again. The blood haloing her head is sucked back in, and she rises. Blue-black space warps around her.

 

* * *

 

Far away, across the universe space warps. On the ruins of a planet a magician, a child, three aliens, a scientist and someone half-human are brought to earth along with their ship. 

 

* * *

 

In far space, in a gaping chasm and place of wreck and ruin, a ship is remade, Asgardians and aliens and one Jotun rise.

“What-” says Heimdall as his sight returns and he can See vast space and know.

“Heimdall,” Loki says. “Heimdall, where is Thor?”

And space warps.

 

* * *

 

In the cold rings about a frozen and hidden star a giant dwarf finds the metal about his hands shatter loose. As he looks around the rings repopulate once more.

 

* * *

 

Cities and worlds rebuild. New York, yes, and Xandar too, Knowhere rises from ashes, reality and time warping it back to how it once was.

The chasm of Sokovia, half rebuilt in, is allowed to rebuild and is aided too, given strength and space it did not have before.

 

* * *

 

A magician is brought from a Sanctum to a battlefield. 

Those around the battlefield are drawn close - do they walk, are they warped? They don’t entirely know.

The creatures Thanos had sicced on Wakanda warp and fade and wither away, though the dead bodies remain. The ships are emptied - but they do not vanish.

Shuri will need to know what they must defend against in future after all.

 

* * *

 

The power is blinding, but Wanda remembers being blinded before, when all she could see was scarlet and minds, the world grey and almost invisible to her sight as her sight became more.

Before the power overwhelms her she makes one last change to the warp and weft of reality.

Her brother shimmers into being before her.

 

* * *

 

She pulls the gauntlet off. It stays shrunken to her size as she throws it to the soil. The grass where Thanos had fallen is burned and singed. Nothing there remains as Vision's stone dims once more.

“Thor,” she says. “Make sure it is destroyed. Not hidden. Destroyed.”

A green woman strides up, uses a knife to pry one stone loose. “This,” she says. “I know where this goes.”

“Not hidden,” Wanda says. “It can’t-”

“Thanos killed me for this,” she says. “I know where it goes. It is not a sacrifice many can make, and fewer will when I move it.”

Wanda looks at the woman’s mind, remembers Thanos’ anguish and nods. 

A sigil warps and the green is pulled loose. “This is ours,” a cloaked man says. “We have protected it before. We will again. And with it, we will see when we are threatened again.”

Red remains, and purple, and blue.

“Thor?” she asks.

“I don’t know if it can be destroyed,” he says. “But I will find a way to keep them all safe.”

 

* * *

 

Pietro’s arms are as warm as she remembers. Vision’s are the same soft-cool she loves. She embraces her brother and tells him all he has missed. She embraces her lover and Vision whispers in her ear the softest, gentlest, “Thank you.”

Wanda stands with those she loves and had lost, and has regained, and does not let herself shake with fear and exhaustion until everyone is gone.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this please comment! Or if you'd rather, come talk to me at my [tumblr](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
